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Putin just recognized the full Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, 2/3 of which is currently controlled by Ukraining troops. Hard to see how this doesn't escalate into

by csee 5y ago

Putin just recognized the full Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, 2/3 of which is currently controlled by Ukraining troops. Hard to see how this doesn't escalate into a full on war now?

journey_16162 5y ago
Their best bet is probably to give them up, in hopes Russia will not invade the entire country.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  Russia invaded those two regions - why not take the rest?
  - journey_16162 5y ago
    We don't know that - and sadly, it's not that unlikely. But if they don't retreat from those regions while it's still an unknown, it will just give Russia pretext to invade entire Ukraine. They don't have a lot to lose by retreating and potentially everything to win if Russia backs off. There's not a chance anyway they would be able to take those regions back.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > If they don't retreat from those regions while it's still an unknown, it will just give Russia pretext to invade entire Ukraine. According to Ukraine, Russia invented the pretexts it has already cited for the “need” to intervene in those two regions, so from Ukraine's perspective, avoiding given Russia a “genuine” (given Russia’s nakedly illegal claims) pretext has zero marginal cost, since the absence of a “genuine” (even given Russia’s preexisting propaganda position) pretext has no evident impact on Russia’s willingness to act. Given that, Ukraine has little rational reason to consider providing a pretext under Russia’s propaganda framework to be a significant factor.
    - vorpalhex 5y ago
      You don't scede territory in hopes that it might make your adversary content. That has basically never worked historically. Russia already has invented a pretext for "pacifying" Ukraine. The response must be sudden and overwhelming force. Put another way, when someone has broken into your house at night when it is obviously occupied, you do not hand over your wife or children in hopes your own life may be spared. You respond with an escalation of force.
  - hogrider 5y ago
    That's all they want really since they will poison Ukraine from joining NATO forever.
- partiallypro 5y ago
  Russia will probably invade the entire country, because...well Ukraine could still join NATO and would likely now have the votes (they just can't be in a state of war.) Also Putin made pretty clear yesterday he doesn't believe Ukraine can exist without it being Russian.
  - avgcorrection 5y ago
    Invading the entire country would be very costly. Russia has a superior military but Ukraine’s is still very large, and the attacker needs superior numbers to begin with (a general principle). And they would have to deal with a lot more insurgency warfare as they move into the west of the country. I think Russia might possibly have ambitions of conquering the east of the Ukraine up to Dnieper but no further. Which is still a large area, to be sure.
    - bcrosby95 5y ago
      > Which is still a large area, to be sure. And includes the capital of Ukraine.
    - partiallypro 5y ago
      Russia has a tremendous air advantage if they were to invade, and NATO can't help without sparking a major conflict. The HQ of their Naval Force was already taken with Crimea and the Navy itself is very small; there's also a good bit of Russian apologists in Ukraine especially in the East that would probably make moving close to the Capitol fairly easy. From Belarus it's essentially a straight shot to Kiev. I hope you're right, but Putin seems to have indicated he wants it all. I think it might start in the East but spread.
  - throw827474737 5y ago
    What would they want with the whole country, lol? Believe they would be happy if the EU adopts that economically ruined part any time, without threatening them further by pulling more and more countries .. ah anyway.. So many armchair politicians and strategists with so much far off comments here, it is getting hilarious. And yeah, a lot of pain that will now ensue likely could have been avoided if that NATO thing hadn't started now, or maybe even taken Russia in when they pleaded for it 20 years ago? But yeah, now go on and push them more and more into their corner, where either one of us or them will soon do something really stupid. I know I will be downvoted to oblivion, and Russias move now is very bad, but the hypocracy and the US-pinked armchair geostrategic world view here is really so one sided, cannot believe it.
- avgcorrection 5y ago
  Is Putin even interested in making them into sovereign states? I don’t see how it achieves any of Russia’s goals. It hardly widens the Volgograd Gap. I think concessions from the West would be better for Russia. But since they aren’t giving them any, Putin seemingly had to go in with his “peacekeeping force” or be called on his bluff. I think Putin might plan to invade Ukraine to the point of making a land bridge to Crimea. Because I don’t see how Russia’s position has been improved with this move, even if Ukraine backs off from Donetsk and Luhansk completely.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Their best bet is probably to give them up, in hopes Russia will not invade the entire country. The concessions Russia is looking for from the West are retreat from the NATO countries of Eastern Europe so that Russia can do (or, turn them into puppets with the threat of doing) the same thing to them that it is now doing to Ukraine. The first part is nakedly overt, the second part is not even all that subtle in their intent. They’ve been very clear that Russia is entitled to a sphere of influence around its borders under its effective exclusive direction.
    - csee 5y ago
      But how does this make logical sense. There's a number of European countries that are not in NATO that are now going to be signing up to NATO. All that Russia has gained is to veto Ukraine's NATO membership but it has lost this bigger battle.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  Their best bet is probably to give <Czechoslovakia> up, in hopes <Germany> will not invade the entire <Europe> Their best bet is probably to <pay the Danegeld>, in hopes <the Dane> will not <return with further demands>.
  - dundarious 5y ago
    Abkhazia and South Ossetia would seem to be the more relevant examples that go counter to your implied argument.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Abkhazia and South Ossetia would seem to be the more relevant examples that go counter to your implied argument. Yeah, if you were advising the government of Ukraine, you could make that argument in 2014 about why yielding in practice without formally giving up Crimea made sense. But, given Crimea, if you were Ukraine in 2022, you’d have to consider the balance to have shifted back to the Munich/Danegeld position.
      - dundarious 5y ago
        Crimea is gone and it's not coming back. That much has been clear pretty much since day 1 of annexation. It's a strategic port, and there was a chance of a color revolution handing it to NATO. I could imagine the Kazakh cosmodrome driving a similar wedge, depending on how and if unrest grows there. Neither would imply Putin or the Russian leaders more broadly want something like "lebensraum". In fact, Russia can't sustain an Afghanistan level war/quagmire, which is what a broader Ukrainian invasion would be. Even if they had designs beyond Abkhazia/SO style "independence movement support", I don't think they could afford (militarily, not economically) to follow through. Maybe I'm wrong and this will be like the 2nd Chechen war. I think it won't. Plenty of Western powers are already more than happy to supply "lethal aid", i.e., weapons and munitions, to Ukraine, even with neo-Nazi groups involved. The same could not be said for the Islamic fighters in Chechnya (AFAIK). And I don't think Minsk 2 was a bluff. Neither Ukraine nor Russia are honoring it. Ukraine needs to stop implementing discriminatory language and education laws, and seriously seek to implement some form of regional autonomy. Russia needs to withdraw its forces (it was pretending it hadn't deployed any). Neither side wishes to "give in" to the other. Neither side are "the good guys", or a "beacon of democracy", or "anti-imperialists", and deserving of military support. I wish that there had been more focus on the fact that the West could have relatively easily applied pressure to make a more serious attempt at implementing Minsk 2. But instead, everything is reduced to a battle of good and evil.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  Their best bet is to fight back and show that war will cost Russia more than they thought.
  - ohwellish 5y ago
    that's exactly what will happened it will cost russia so much more than they could possibly imagine from just Ukraine pushing back alone
  - 0xmarcin 5y ago
    The question is how much it will cost Ukraine? In my opinion the conflict is already lost, now the Ukraine should concentrate on minimizing the losses and avoiding full scale war.
  - cutemonster 5y ago
    But what does Putin care what it costs Russia? As long as he personally is still well off
    - csee 5y ago
      If it bombs their economy and puts pressure on the oligarchs, the chances of overthrow/revolution goes up. On the other hand, if this stirs up nationalistic sentiment, his support will go up. I am not sure how these net off.
- shmerl 5y ago
  Like all racketeers, Putin will lie through his teeth and will grab anything he could grab waiting for opportunity to grab even more. He'll never stop voluntarily. He can't produce, he knows only how to steal and rob. So their best chance is to push back and to look for allies who could help put Putin back in place that he belongs - near the latrine.
int_19h 5y ago
The interesting thing about Putin's presidential decrees [1][2] is that they do not actually say anything about what the borders of DNR/LNR are. They just say, "recognize ... as a sovereign and independent state". I rather suspect that this is deliberate, to allow for flexible interpretation as needed. On one hand, it's obvious justification for pushing beyond the actual territory controlled by DNR/LNR. On the other, if they don't actually do that, or try and are stopped, they can always claim that that was the plan all along, and "mission accomplished". [1] http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001202202220001 http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/00012022022200... [2] http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001202202220002 http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/00012022022200...
- csee 5y ago
  Well apparently he gave a speech today where he said he recognized the LDNR borders according to their constitution, which are the entire oblasts?
  - int_19h 5y ago
    Yep, that doesn't bode well at all.
nikolay 5y ago
So, don't you think Ukraine was asking for this all the time? Maybe now the speculations about Zelensky being a Putin's puppet make more sense; he's a good actor, no doubt his past career, but you had to be really stupid not knowing what was going to happen. At the end of the day, we all expected Putin to recognize these republics back during the Euromaidan. I'm pretty sure a lot of the Russians in East Ukraine felt betrayed all this time. So, often you can postpone certain events, but they will eventually happen - like it or not. And this is no surprize for anyone.

by csee 5y ago

Putin just recognized the full Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, 2/3 of which is currently controlled by Ukraining troops. Hard to see how this doesn't escalate into a full on war now?

journey_16162 5y ago

Their best bet is probably to give them up, in hopes Russia will not invade the entire country.

vorpalhex 5y ago
Russia invaded those two regions - why not take the rest?
- journey_16162 5y ago
  We don't know that - and sadly, it's not that unlikely. But if they don't retreat from those regions while it's still an unknown, it will just give Russia pretext to invade entire Ukraine. They don't have a lot to lose by retreating and potentially everything to win if Russia backs off. There's not a chance anyway they would be able to take those regions back.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > If they don't retreat from those regions while it's still an unknown, it will just give Russia pretext to invade entire Ukraine. According to Ukraine, Russia invented the pretexts it has already cited for the “need” to intervene in those two regions, so from Ukraine's perspective, avoiding given Russia a “genuine” (given Russia’s nakedly illegal claims) pretext has zero marginal cost, since the absence of a “genuine” (even given Russia’s preexisting propaganda position) pretext has no evident impact on Russia’s willingness to act. Given that, Ukraine has little rational reason to consider providing a pretext under Russia’s propaganda framework to be a significant factor.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    You don't scede territory in hopes that it might make your adversary content. That has basically never worked historically. Russia already has invented a pretext for "pacifying" Ukraine. The response must be sudden and overwhelming force. Put another way, when someone has broken into your house at night when it is obviously occupied, you do not hand over your wife or children in hopes your own life may be spared. You respond with an escalation of force.
- hogrider 5y ago
  That's all they want really since they will poison Ukraine from joining NATO forever.
partiallypro 5y ago
Russia will probably invade the entire country, because...well Ukraine could still join NATO and would likely now have the votes (they just can't be in a state of war.) Also Putin made pretty clear yesterday he doesn't believe Ukraine can exist without it being Russian.
- avgcorrection 5y ago
  Invading the entire country would be very costly. Russia has a superior military but Ukraine’s is still very large, and the attacker needs superior numbers to begin with (a general principle). And they would have to deal with a lot more insurgency warfare as they move into the west of the country. I think Russia might possibly have ambitions of conquering the east of the Ukraine up to Dnieper but no further. Which is still a large area, to be sure.
  - bcrosby95 5y ago
    > Which is still a large area, to be sure. And includes the capital of Ukraine.
  - partiallypro 5y ago
    Russia has a tremendous air advantage if they were to invade, and NATO can't help without sparking a major conflict. The HQ of their Naval Force was already taken with Crimea and the Navy itself is very small; there's also a good bit of Russian apologists in Ukraine especially in the East that would probably make moving close to the Capitol fairly easy. From Belarus it's essentially a straight shot to Kiev. I hope you're right, but Putin seems to have indicated he wants it all. I think it might start in the East but spread.
- throw827474737 5y ago
  What would they want with the whole country, lol? Believe they would be happy if the EU adopts that economically ruined part any time, without threatening them further by pulling more and more countries .. ah anyway.. So many armchair politicians and strategists with so much far off comments here, it is getting hilarious. And yeah, a lot of pain that will now ensue likely could have been avoided if that NATO thing hadn't started now, or maybe even taken Russia in when they pleaded for it 20 years ago? But yeah, now go on and push them more and more into their corner, where either one of us or them will soon do something really stupid. I know I will be downvoted to oblivion, and Russias move now is very bad, but the hypocracy and the US-pinked armchair geostrategic world view here is really so one sided, cannot believe it.
avgcorrection 5y ago
Is Putin even interested in making them into sovereign states? I don’t see how it achieves any of Russia’s goals. It hardly widens the Volgograd Gap. I think concessions from the West would be better for Russia. But since they aren’t giving them any, Putin seemingly had to go in with his “peacekeeping force” or be called on his bluff. I think Putin might plan to invade Ukraine to the point of making a land bridge to Crimea. Because I don’t see how Russia’s position has been improved with this move, even if Ukraine backs off from Donetsk and Luhansk completely.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Their best bet is probably to give them up, in hopes Russia will not invade the entire country. The concessions Russia is looking for from the West are retreat from the NATO countries of Eastern Europe so that Russia can do (or, turn them into puppets with the threat of doing) the same thing to them that it is now doing to Ukraine. The first part is nakedly overt, the second part is not even all that subtle in their intent. They’ve been very clear that Russia is entitled to a sphere of influence around its borders under its effective exclusive direction.
  - csee 5y ago
    But how does this make logical sense. There's a number of European countries that are not in NATO that are now going to be signing up to NATO. All that Russia has gained is to veto Ukraine's NATO membership but it has lost this bigger battle.
dragonwriter 5y ago
Their best bet is probably to give <Czechoslovakia> up, in hopes <Germany> will not invade the entire <Europe> Their best bet is probably to <pay the Danegeld>, in hopes <the Dane> will not <return with further demands>.
- dundarious 5y ago
  Abkhazia and South Ossetia would seem to be the more relevant examples that go counter to your implied argument.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Abkhazia and South Ossetia would seem to be the more relevant examples that go counter to your implied argument. Yeah, if you were advising the government of Ukraine, you could make that argument in 2014 about why yielding in practice without formally giving up Crimea made sense. But, given Crimea, if you were Ukraine in 2022, you’d have to consider the balance to have shifted back to the Munich/Danegeld position.
    - dundarious 5y ago
      Crimea is gone and it's not coming back. That much has been clear pretty much since day 1 of annexation. It's a strategic port, and there was a chance of a color revolution handing it to NATO. I could imagine the Kazakh cosmodrome driving a similar wedge, depending on how and if unrest grows there. Neither would imply Putin or the Russian leaders more broadly want something like "lebensraum". In fact, Russia can't sustain an Afghanistan level war/quagmire, which is what a broader Ukrainian invasion would be. Even if they had designs beyond Abkhazia/SO style "independence movement support", I don't think they could afford (militarily, not economically) to follow through. Maybe I'm wrong and this will be like the 2nd Chechen war. I think it won't. Plenty of Western powers are already more than happy to supply "lethal aid", i.e., weapons and munitions, to Ukraine, even with neo-Nazi groups involved. The same could not be said for the Islamic fighters in Chechnya (AFAIK). And I don't think Minsk 2 was a bluff. Neither Ukraine nor Russia are honoring it. Ukraine needs to stop implementing discriminatory language and education laws, and seriously seek to implement some form of regional autonomy. Russia needs to withdraw its forces (it was pretending it hadn't deployed any). Neither side wishes to "give in" to the other. Neither side are "the good guys", or a "beacon of democracy", or "anti-imperialists", and deserving of military support. I wish that there had been more focus on the fact that the West could have relatively easily applied pressure to make a more serious attempt at implementing Minsk 2. But instead, everything is reduced to a battle of good and evil.
mywittyname 5y ago
Their best bet is to fight back and show that war will cost Russia more than they thought.
- ohwellish 5y ago
  that's exactly what will happened it will cost russia so much more than they could possibly imagine from just Ukraine pushing back alone
- 0xmarcin 5y ago
  The question is how much it will cost Ukraine? In my opinion the conflict is already lost, now the Ukraine should concentrate on minimizing the losses and avoiding full scale war.
- cutemonster 5y ago
  But what does Putin care what it costs Russia? As long as he personally is still well off
  - csee 5y ago
    If it bombs their economy and puts pressure on the oligarchs, the chances of overthrow/revolution goes up. On the other hand, if this stirs up nationalistic sentiment, his support will go up. I am not sure how these net off.
shmerl 5y ago
Like all racketeers, Putin will lie through his teeth and will grab anything he could grab waiting for opportunity to grab even more. He'll never stop voluntarily. He can't produce, he knows only how to steal and rob. So their best chance is to push back and to look for allies who could help put Putin back in place that he belongs - near the latrine.

int_19h 5y ago

The interesting thing about Putin's presidential decrees [1][2] is that they do not actually say anything about what the borders of DNR/LNR are. They just say, "recognize ... as a sovereign and independent state". I rather suspect that this is deliberate, to allow for flexible interpretation as needed. On one hand, it's obvious justification for pushing beyond the actual territory controlled by DNR/LNR. On the other, if they don't actually do that, or try and are stopped, they can always claim that that was the plan all along, and "mission accomplished". [1] http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001202202220001 http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/00012022022200... [2] http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001202202220002 http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/00012022022200...

csee 5y ago
Well apparently he gave a speech today where he said he recognized the LDNR borders according to their constitution, which are the entire oblasts?
- int_19h 5y ago
  Yep, that doesn't bode well at all.

nikolay 5y ago

So, don't you think Ukraine was asking for this all the time? Maybe now the speculations about Zelensky being a Putin's puppet make more sense; he's a good actor, no doubt his past career, but you had to be really stupid not knowing what was going to happen. At the end of the day, we all expected Putin to recognize these republics back during the Euromaidan. I'm pretty sure a lot of the Russians in East Ukraine felt betrayed all this time. So, often you can postpone certain events, but they will eventually happen - like it or not. And this is no surprize for anyone.